A proposal for Nxt marketing, promotion and development over the following 12 months

Nxt has came a very long way over the last 2 years. We have created and maintained a solid technology base and community that has been innovative, honest, constructive and forward thinking. You just have to look at the working features Nxt has, as opposed to the promises of many others, and see that there is a lot of value in the Nxt project and ecosystem.

As we all know, our market capitalisation has unfortunately shrunk by more than 90% over that time. Much of that loss, but not all, can be blamed on external market forces, as many other projects are in a similar state. The crypto-currency/blockchain technology market is also changing rapidly, as new players enter the game, like Eris and GetCredits. Many of these new projects have their origins outside the ‘crypto scene’, and are markedly more professional in their business approach than the first generation of crypto-currency projects.

In this increasingly competitive, professionalised market, our approach to business adoption and development is holding us back: we have no real co-ordinated marketing strategy, and we have an over-reliance on volunteer work. Our main software client, the NRS, although very effective, is complex and intimidating, even for some crypto-currency insiders. These issues need to be addressed now if Nxt is to carry on as a serious player in the crypto market.

We are the first to say that Nxt does have a superb platform, with some very good external projects in our eco-system (for instance Supernet, DeBuNe, Pangea and many more) and an amazingly dedicated community, but we need to adapt to a changing market by focusing more energy on a coherent and outward looking marketing campaign and by making the Nxt user experience as easy as possible, for both entry level and more advanced users.

We (EvilDave and Damelon) therefore have made the following proposal, after talking extensively to Jean Luc and Lyaffe: to set up and finance a dedicated marketing and business co-ordination team, which will be run under the banner of the Nxt Foundation, with full backing from the Nxt core developers. This can be seen as a professionalisation of the efforts we have been making over the last two years as volunteers.

In keeping with the de-centralised/starfish nature of Nxt, we will act as independent representatives for Nxt and as co-ordinators and facilitators for the marketing/PR efforts of the Nxt community (and outside contractors), but not as a group imposing any ‘party line’ on the community. Tennessee is an extra leg for the starfish, not a new brain. As we have already done, we will work with the whole community, and we invite each and every one of you to come to us should you need help.

The core team of Project Tennessee from the Nxt Foundation will therefore be Bas Wisselink (Damelon) and Dave Pearce (EvilDave), who will recieve a part-time salary on a self-employed basis, allowing them to work freely on Tennessee, in addition to their other tasks within the Nxt community.

Several components of Tennessee will also require paid outside contractors or extra manpower, for which we are also here seeking budget.

Goals

Tennessee has three overall aims:

• A major increase in and professionalisation of Nxt marketing

• To improve the Nxt user experience, in terms of ease of use, support and documentation

• The acquisition of leads to both incorporate Nxt into real world applications/businesses.and to attract investors to the platform.In order to realise the above aims, the Tennessee project will have the following short term goals, to be realised by Q1 2016:

● Completely overhaul www.nxt.org , and streamline the web presence/SEO for all community owned sites.

● Create a continuous and coherent marketing/PR campaign, putting the focus on what Nxt has achieved so far, and on highlighting real world use cases for Nxt.

● As part of the above 2 points: create a complete portfolio of usecases, media packs and other publicity material, to be used in all Nxt marketing.

● Set up a co-ordinated team for social networking/forums.

● Create a coherent strategy to interest potential Nxt-based projects and investors who may be interested in utilising or investing in Nxt/SuperNet.

● Expand and improve on relationships with our media contacts, including establishing exploratory relationships with professional PR agencies.

● Create leads, and follow them up. This is a task we have been doing for months now, but it desperately needs to be professionalised and that means time.

Long term goals, to be realised by Q2/3 2016:

● Assist/Finance the development and deployment of simplified NRS software: i.e. Lite clients and webwallets.

● Create a comprehensive user guide for the entire Nxt system, from account creation all the way to customised MS issues.

● Set up an incubator system for both potential and currently running NXT based projects. This will have the aim of helping out projects with both direct technical/marketing assistance, and to bring these projects into contact with investors. The incubator will take a small percentage portion of any projects that it helps, and redistribute this income to the Nxt community.

● Integrate a professional PR agency into Nxt promotion, and finance a campaign from them.

Further goals will be added to Tennessee as the project progresses, but this outline is a solid basis to build further marketing and PR on.

Funding & Fundraiser

We have talked to the core devs extensively over the last weeks and we estimate that to be able to do this for a period of 12 months, this project will require a minimum of 10 million NXT at current prices. This covers both our salaries for this period and the budget to actually do the tasks we need to be doing.

We have already started an informal fundraising project among NXT businesses and stakeholders to raise the minimum of 10 million NXT, and we are happy to say we have already received firm pledges for up to 5.5 million from Nxt investors and stake-holders.

This makes us confident we can raise the remaining 4.5 million NXT to complete the full 12 month commitment.

We want to start the fundraiser for this as soon as possible, and we will do this by a fundraiser using the Monetary System.

Using the MS in this way will also help us to create a complete use-case for ‘Nxt Monetary System as a crowdfunding platform’ , so we are actually using an aspect of the project to create material for one of the project goals.

The Foundation is also actively looking at methods to create an income stream for holders of the MS coin, possibly via licensing deals or as a result of income from the project incubator outlined above. This is very theoretical right now, however, and will not be happening in the short term. There are other uses for MS tokens and we will be exploring these.

If the 10 million minimum is not met by the closing date of the fundraiser, all reserved Nxt will of course be automatically returned to every donating account. We do sincerely hope it will not come to this, as we think this project is crucial to the future of the NXT Platform.

All Tennessee funds and administration will be handled by the Nxt Foundation, and most day to day decisions will be made and carried out by us, though we will be using the MS coin as a voting system to gather feedback from backers on major decisions.

Conclusion

You all know both EvilDave and me. We are asking you to enable us to do what we do best, which is go out there and get NXT the attention it deserves. We believe we have proven to have the commitment, skills and above all staying power to do this. Our skillsets are different, but complement each other well. As a team, we believe we can make a real difference, especially as we will be working with many people in the community and helping them to grow and flourish. We do not back down, we do not quit when the going gets tough, because we know we have created something of value and worth with the Nxt project.

We do think this is needed, based on our experience of the last two years, and we also think that this is a very good moment: Nxt technology is mature, we have enough features to genuinely support outside projects, and the adoption of blockchain technology is starting to reach the mainstream.

And: it’s almost our second birthday, we should celebrate our achievements.

If you have questions or comments (or encouragement!), please leave them below. We are happy to answer questions.

Edit by Damelon: we have also added a BTC donation address: 1K4cKgFEtbf6UbZDxs8Sx8MU1NSfkhCMsA

23:30, 10/10/2015I've just issued the MS currency we will be using as a crowdfunding tool to raise the 10 million NXT needed to run Tennessee for the next year.

Here's a screenshot from the 1.5.15 client showing the TNSSE currency, as issued by account NXT-P439-YVBD-VUEQ-A3S2T

Here are the complete details for the TNSSE currency, check carefully before you commit any funds :

If you wish to make a donation to Tennessee by purchasing some TNSSE, simply click on the 'reserve' button (as circled above) to get to:

Then fill in the amount of NXT you wish to donate. In this example, I've used 45,000 NXT as the donation amount.Fill in your passphrase, and hit send......the NXT amount will be deducted from your account and held until the activation block, which is block 554,000.This will be sometime Monday 26 October 2015, in theory round 22:00 If the target 10 million NXT is reached, all funds will be transferred to the Tennessee account. If it is not reached, all funds will return to the original accounts.

Here's some Tennessee scenery to look at, while we wait for block 554,000:

I think that the Tennessee Project is an important milestone in the development of NXT as a platform and that its crucial that this fund raising campaign succeeds.If we all work together to promote NXT the sky is the limit. LY

Good deal, and we know you guys are greatly loyal which is the best quality we can find in crypto.

Now it would definitely help/accelerate the fund raising if there is a bit more confidence/statements that by buying the MS coin we are somehow "part of the foundation" (if that is even an option), for future whitelabel deals or other foundation income.

e.g I can only speak for myself - I would give 5k for donation, but maybe 50k if that binds us to the NXT foundation, just because I'd like to be part of it, passively (for now), and for the future great potential of external deals.

The only answer i can give you right now is slightly vague: we've discussed (with core devs and others) ways of using the NXT Foundation as a conduit to feed revenue from licensing/project/incubators/whatever back into the Nxt community. We haven't yet figured out how to do it, or even the legality of using a MS token as a means of distributing any revenue.

It is tricky. We can commit to offering voting rights with the MS coin, but we can't make any definite promises about possible dividends or revenue from the MS coin itself.If Tennessee works, (and if we meet our goals, it will) then the market value of Nxt will rise......

The only answer i can give you right now is slightly vague: we've discussed (with core devs and others) ways of using the NXT Foundation as a conduit to feed revenue from licensing/project/incubators/whatever back into the Nxt community. We haven't yet figured out how to do it, or even the legality of using a MS token as a means of distributing any revenue.

It is tricky. We can commit to offering voting rights with the MS coin, but we can't make any definite promises about possible dividends or revenue from the MS coin itself.If Tennessee works, (and if we meet our goals, it will) then the market value of Nxt will rise......

Part of the ongoing research will be hów to do it without being in loads of trouble.The Foundation is a registered entity, so as such we are bound by laws.However, from my personal end, I feel this is something we need to solve and work on, so that's part of the research into this whole field.Takes time, but it's definitely part of the commitment, because it's needed.

As for binding yourself to the Foundation, we are also (as the Foundation) working on a partner program where people and organisations can affiliate themselves to us. We are building all these things step by step and cannot and don't want to go too fast because we want to get it right and solid.

I am very happy that you want to be connected in some form or another, by the way. It's good to actually hear that kind of thing expressed.

The only answer i can give you right now is slightly vague: we've discussed (with core devs and others) ways of using the NXT Foundation as a conduit to feed revenue from licensing/project/incubators/whatever back into the Nxt community. We haven't yet figured out how to do it, or even the legality of using a MS token as a means of distributing any revenue.

It is tricky. We can commit to offering voting rights with the MS coin, but we can't make any definite promises about possible dividends or revenue from the MS coin itself.If Tennessee works, (and if we meet our goals, it will) then the market value of Nxt will rise......

Part of the ongoing research will be hów to do it without being in loads of trouble.The Foundation is a registered entity, so as such we are bound by laws.However, from my personal end, I feel this is something we need to solve and work on, so that's part of the research into this whole field.Takes time, but it's definitely part of the commitment, because it's needed.

As for binding yourself to the Foundation, we are also (as the Foundation) working on a partner program where people and organisations can affiliate themselves to us. We are building all these things step by step and cannot and don't want to go too fast because we want to get it right and solid.

I am very happy that you want to be connected in some form or another, by the way. It's good to actually hear that kind of thing expressed.

why not an asset that is given to core devs, etc who earn them.totally separately the foundation who gets revenues from outside, decides to put up a buywallunless there are laws against the foundation from buying XYZ asset, this seems ok

Thanks you both for your quick answers, and I'm glad you are at least trying to find ways around it.

For the asset idea: I was thinking as first, it's a great or at least plausible temporary solution, that could also combines not only core dev and donors as potential winners, but also the ones who secure the network. But what will happen when this buy wall is placed? You either sell into it to get your income (and therefore have no more 'unofficial' shares in the foundation), or don't sell and don't see any income. So not a win-win concept but better than nothing, maybe. I don't think it's best for the foundation itself anyways, economically speaking.

Thanks you both for your quick answers, and I'm glad you are at least trying to find ways around it.

For the asset idea: I was thinking as first, it's a great or at least plausible temporary solution, that could also combines not only core dev and donors as potential winners, but also the ones who secure the network. But what will happen when this buy wall is placed? You either sell into it to get your income (and therefore have no more 'unofficial' shares in the foundation), or don't sell and don't see any income. So not a win-win concept but better than nothing, maybe. I don't think it's best for the foundation itself anyways, economically speaking.

i am not saying using the foundation asset/mscoin, but rather a totally independent asset. so selling it into the buywall is just selling it at market price and not anything to do with foundation

Great innitiative guys! If Nxt wants to compete against the structured company-crypto's we need to get more competetive and structured too. I anyone can organise this, Evildave and Damelon are the ones for the job. They are loyal and know how to get stuff done. The can manage the goals in collabration with devs, business partners and PR-boys and girls.

Great, finally Nxt will have a dedicated marketing team. IMHO this is much needed and overdue.

I'm in Nxt since 2013 and I know you guys and that you always have done great things for Nxt. I can't imagine how you want to increase your Nxt commitment (and work time) much more without having an effect for your real life. Sure you guys must have jobs, how will you handle that? Maybe you could elaborate a bit about your job background, if that is not too intimate.

Yeah, combining having an actual life and working on Nxt isn't easy. Partners become shouty, as some of you may have noticed

I've been putting in a lot of hours into Nxt for a long time, probably more than 20 hours per week for most months over the last 18 months or so.....but it is getting harder to maintain this workload while relying on Nxt donations to cover my time. Some whales have been very generous in supporting us, and that's got us to where we are now. If I was an original stakeholder with a fat stack o' NXT, I'd be able to cover my own bills while doing this, but I'm not.

I have 3 choices right now: (1) carry on as I am with minimal funding, (2) stop working on Nxt and find another project to cover my bills or (3)take this to the next level and commit fully to Nxt marketing with enough funding to keep my mortgage paid for the next 12 months.

Well, you can see which choice I want to be able to take.

My CV goes a little something like this:Barman,ditch digger, degree in biology/biothechnology, research into bacterial metabolism + bio-remediation, active in the '90's rave/traveller movement, motorcycle courier/riding instructor, dishwasher, sysadmin/IT (mostly hardware and infrastructure), classic car importer/dealer/restoration, crypto-currency pioneer/annoying person/whatever......there's a few more , but those are the highlights. And, yes, I'm an old bastard.

The asset idea could be workable, but we still need to spend time on figuring out how any income into the Foundation will work, so it's a very hypothetical situation. Not something to be worked out now, I think, but we will need to figure something out when we start seeing the possibility of an income stream for Nxt from licensing/incubator projects.

Yeah, combining having an actual life and working on Nxt isn't easy. Partners become shouty, as some of you may have noticed

I've been putting in a lot of hours into Nxt for a long time, probably more than 20 hours per week for most months over the last 18 months or so.....but it is getting harder to maintain this workload while relying on Nxt donations to cover my time. Some whales have been very generous in supporting us, and that's got us to where we are now. If I was an original stakeholder with a fat stack o' NXT, I'd be able to cover my own bills while doing this, but I'm not.

I have 3 choices right now: (1) carry on as I am with minimal funding, (2) stop working on Nxt and find another project to cover my bills or (3)take this to the next level and commit fully to Nxt marketing with enough funding to keep my mortgage paid for the next 12 months.

Well, you can see which choice I want to be able to take.

My CV goes a little something like this:Barman,ditch digger, degree in biology/biothechnology, research into bacterial metabolism + bio-remediation, active in the '90's rave/traveller movement, motorcycle courier/riding instructor, dishwasher, sysadmin/IT (mostly hardware and infrastructure), classic car importer/dealer/restoration, crypto-currency pioneer/annoying person/whatever......there's a few more , but those are the highlights. And, yes, I'm an old bastard.

The asset idea could be workable, but we still need to spend time on figuring out how any income into the Foundation will work, so it's a very hypothetical situation. Not something to be worked out now, I think, but we will need to figure something out when we start seeing the possibility of an income stream for Nxt from licensing/incubator projects.

Thanks for taking the time for such a detailed answer. I had to look up a few words but I think I've captured the essence.I like people with a "not so straight" CV and it seems to me that you are a jack of all trades (in a positive meaning). I think you are the right man for this project!

I'm happy that we have such characters like EvilDave and Damelon on board. I'm sure that they will do a better marketing for Nxt than ever before with this project!

Great, finally Nxt will have a dedicated marketing team. IMHO this is much needed and overdue.

I'm in Nxt since 2013 and I know you guys and that you always have done great things for Nxt. I can't imagine how you want to increase your Nxt commitment (and work time) much more without having an effect for your real life. Sure you guys must have jobs, how will you handle that? Maybe you could elaborate a bit about your job background, if that is not too intimate.

My answer is much the same as Dave's.Yes, I do have a job, and at this moment I also spend 20+ hours on Nxt.I have the luxury of being able to do this, because I work on my own and have the hours to do it in.This will allow me to spend less time on my "normal" job and even cut hours.

My CV goes like this: freelance director/actor/writer/lichting tech (15 years), founder and manager of a youth theatre troupe (~10 years), founder and director/producer/writer/lighting tech/actor of a small theatre production group (~10 years), teacher at university in group work, creative events and stage lighting (~5 years), several weird odd jobs including janitor, head of a cleaning squad, low level clerk at a trademark bureau, trainer, loads of Customer Service work in appaling companies, manager of a small meditation and yoga gear company which I helped to merge into the company that I work in now as a sales and marketing rep for western Europe (although I am effectively responsible for any English speaking customer).

From the start, I have been convinced that we can do so much more by thinking outside any box. We have a very talented community and a brilliant platform to make things on.